About the Poet

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Vetting and Verification (V &V) Should Always be Upheld with Pious Passion

When President Kiir fired his entire cabinet and
appointed a new one in July of 2013, many of us thought it was the advent of a
new era of accountability. Sadly, as the subsequent series of events would prove,
it was actually the advent of a gloomy era of serious flood of errors. Even for
some of us who knew that Mr. Kiir was already an incapable leader as early as 2005,
we didn’t know his incompetence would be this destructive and eternally
damning. As he metaphorically and fatefully said when he assumed power after
the demise of late Garang, the country is running with no ‘reverse gear.’ So it
is easy to see why there is no stop to killings, meaningless decrees, economic
deterioration, and political intimidation.

But when the cabinet was initially named, a semblance
of a democratic process was exercised with a nominal ‘vetting’ of the
ministers. There was even a rejection of one of the president’s nominees. South
Sudanese therefore thought the dawn of democracy was in the air. However, the
acrimonious vetting process of Telar Ring Deng for Justice Minister soon
revealed something sinister. Mr. Telar was the only one actually vetted as the
rest of the cabinet wasn’t seriously vetted. Telar’s rejection was later
understood to be ‘revenge’ as he was seen to be the power behind the
president’s decisions.

Our democratic utopia was therefore dashed. The process
was even aggravated when the president warned the parliament after they
expressed desire to subject the president’s nominees for the speaker of legislative
assembly and Vice Presidency, to scrutiny. The president warned parliament that
there’d be consequences if they reject his nominees. It was the classic African
preference of personality cult as opposed to democratic or parliamentary
principles.

While the president found it easy, or even
necessary to do away with the vetting process to bolster his hold on the
presidency and power, he can now see that the chicken are coming home to roost.

The constant defection of the likes of Peter Gatdet
and Johnson Oliny is a result of not following due process in the institution
of any given policy proposals. The incorporation of militia into the national
army needs to be done in a manner that reduces any chance of such
rebellion-prone folks to rebel. A government, or even the army, can’t just make
decisions because they feel they are necessary at the time. Long-term effects
have to be put into consideration before any decision is made.

We all know South Sudan has become a totalitarian
regime that has copied Khartoum’s theocratic totalitarianism letter by letter
and word by word. The political atmosphere is stifling in Juba and any
political opposition is treated with pious brutality. There are people who are
in government’s controlled areas but they disapprove of the government. They
just don’t see rebellion as a solution to the problems in South Sudan. However,
the government doesn’t take it seriously that the more they stifle the
political breathing space in South Sudan, the more they drive the disgruntled
minds toward rebellion. The SPLA and National Security Agents arrest people
anyhow and detain them without any due process of the law. Ateny Wek, the
presidential spokesperson, argues that the president doesn’t order such
arrests. If the president doesn’t order such arrests then who has the authority
to do so? Without doubt, we know such arrests are unconstitutional, so why
doesn’t the president stop such arrests given the facts that he’s the guardian
of the constitution, ideally speaking?

The government brags about having been elected;
that it is a democratically elected leadership. However, the president doesn’t
explain to the people—who gave him the mandate to rule—the logic behind some of
the decisions he makes. He breaks constitutional provisions and finds it
unnecessary to explain to the people the reason why. In what nation on earth,
even dictatorial ones, does a president select the leadership and board members
of the supposedly independent bodies such as media authority? Media authority
is supposed to be an independent body that employs people of merit by
subjecting them to credential assessment in their hiring process.

Doesn’t the president have something to do,
something presidential? It has come to the point in which the president is
going to pass decrees employing janitors for his office and the parliament.
This president has either been reduced to this level by those who’d want to see
him destroyed; or he’s reduced himself to his level through incompetence.
Either way, the president needs to wake up and salvage what’s left of his
legacy. The failed Nigerian former president, Goodluck E. Jonathan, salvaged
his legacy in the last minute. He’s going to be remembered for having conceded
election loss and for having peacefully handed over power to President Muhammadu
Buhari, rather than through his failures.

It’s time for President Kiir and Riek Machar to
realize that time is up for them and that the leadership needs to go to a
different, younger class of South Sudanese leadership.

It’s high for the leadership in South Sudan to
subject policies to verification and stern vetting mechanics. We know with
certainty that cabinet ministers contradict each other day in day out because
of lack of systematized verification process.Ministers have to consult one another before they go public in order not
to reflect the government as confused and incompetent. The minister of foreign
information says one thing but he’s soon contradicted by either the minister of
foreign affairs or presidential spokesperson.

Transparency, information verification, respect for
human rights and respect for democratic ideals have never harmed any civilians
or leadership.

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ANGELINA & ADUT ( A Novel)

Leadership, given what is happening now in South Sudan, and generally in Africa, fascinates me. And it fascinates me not in a good way but because of the sociopolitical and socioeconomic ills facing the African continent and most of the so-called 'Third World.' To me, South Sudan, now, is a classic case.Rebellion by disaffected politico-military leaders and repression by the government of South Sudan in Juba have stunted institutional development and leadership growth. This has made service provision almost irrelevant as political survival has taken primacy and supremacy. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

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Black as a universalized cultural identity of the African Person (AP)* is a residual effect of slave and colonial mentality; a racial/race paradigm. It is a malady I call, conservatively speaking, stuck-in-the-past syndrome of color constraints. Black could be an on-the-street ‘social identifier’ of race figures not a meaningful phenomenon of deep cultural identification on a universal scale.

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The questionnaire below is for the book I'm writing on leadership and the factors behind the South Sudanese conflict. I would want to know from South Sudanese and other interested parties what they think.

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SELF-ESTEEM AND DISCRIMINATION

As someone who grew up in war conditions and lived as a refugee for a long time, I'm sometimes considered by many people in the 'west' to be prone to (or have) low self-esteem, be poor or illiterate. Living as refugees or displaced persons, who depended on the good will of others put people in a situation where they don't think much about themselves. But that's not everyone though.

As I stood by our front desk at my place work talking about Race and Identity in relation to my book, Is 'Black' Really Beautiful?, the issue of why many African peoples in North America become so over-sensitive when racial issues come up! For many rational people, this owes its origin to slavery and racial segregation.

But one of my coworkers, a person of European descent, was surprised to realize that her 'black' friend, a very intelligent woman, easily becomes irritated by simple things she [friend] considers racist. The friend considers any mention of a watermelon racist; and complains a lot about 'whiteprivilege.' This means that discrimination is considered something 'whites' don't face because of 'white privilege.' In any discussion between 'blacks' and 'whites', 'white privilege' issue comes up!

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May 27, 2018 - Race permeates our society and it affects almost all aspects of our lives, private or public. Whether we embrace it or dismiss it, it continues to rare its ugly head any time issues of interest come up. It’s controversial and some people prefer that we don’t talk about it not for what it means but for what it does. But nothing can get solved if not discussed. It’s the way of the world.

May 27, 2018 - Juba town is the seat of the National Government. The host is Jubek state Government. With the decentralized system of governance adopted, we have a municipality administrative unit running the affairs of Juba. Simply put, if there is anything that does not go well in Juba town and its surroundings, it is the Municipality that bears the blame for what may be a dereliction of duty. Now, if you see the internal roads, they are deplorable and impassable.

April 11, 2018 - Leadership, given what is happening now in South Sudan, and generally in Africa, fascinates me. And it fascinates me not in a good way but because of the sociopolitical and socioeconomic ills facing the African continent and most of the so-called 'Third World.' To me, South Sudan, now, is a classic case.Rebellion by disaffected politico-military leaders and repression by the government of South Sudan in Juba have stunted institutional development and leadership growth.